Terms of Service

Updated: March 3, 2026

1. Overview

Please read these Terms of Service ("Terms") carefully before using Laterpress products and services. By using Laterpress, you agree to be bound by these Terms, including the User Commitments, arbitration agreement, class-action waiver, and limitations of liability described below.

You may not access or use Laterpress if you are under 18 years of age, if you lack the authority to agree to these Terms, or if agreeing would conflict with any other obligations you may have.

2. Account Creation

You must provide accurate and complete information when creating an account. Impersonation of any person or entity may result in suspension or termination of your account at Laterpress's sole discretion.

3. Ownership

3.1 Your Content

You retain ownership of all content you create and upload to Laterpress. By using the platform, you grant Laterpress a nonexclusive license to store, display, and deliver your content in accordance with your account configuration.

If you enable the optional "Author Community" functionality, you grant Laterpress additional rights to promote your content via recommended and purchased lists.

3.2 Laterpress's Creations

Laterpress owns its website, brand, logo, name, content, and code. You may only use the Laterpress name and logo to promote content you distribute through the platform.

4. Using Laterpress the Right Way

You bear responsibility for all activity that occurs under your account. The following uses are prohibited:

1. Illegal Conduct — Fraudulent or threatening activities of any kind.
2. Malicious Code or Spam — Distributing malware, attempting unauthorized access, or sending spam.
3. Disruption of Service — Interfering with or disrupting Laterpress products or services.
4. Scraping or Mining — Crawling, scraping, or cataloguing Laterpress content in violation of the applicable robots.txt directives. Laterpress serves robots.txt files on its domains and author subdomains; any automated access that disregards those directives is unauthorized.
5. Solicitation — Targeting Laterpress users on behalf of competing businesses.
6. Unauthorized Access — Decompiling, reverse engineering, or otherwise attempting to derive the source code of Laterpress products.

5. Reporting Security Issues

If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it to protect@laterpress.com with the subject line "Reporting a security vulnerability." No bug bounties are currently offered.

6. User Commitments

The following commitments represent binding agreements between Laterpress and our users. Unlike other sections of these Terms, which we may update at any time, this User Commitments section can only be modified in accordance with the Change Process described in Section 6.6 below.

These commitments apply to products and services offered through the laterpress.com website, its subdomains, and any mobile applications that serve laterpress.com content. They do not apply to separately branded products or services that Laterpress may develop on other domains.

6.1 No Fees on Direct Sales

Users may publish and sell digital books on Laterpress without paying any fee retained by Laterpress on direct sales.

Direct sales are sales not attributable to optional paid features that Laterpress may offer (such as referral or discovery features). Direct sales remain subject to fees charged by third-party services (such as payment processors), and Laterpress may pass through costs it incurs for refunds and fraud on such sales.

This commitment remains in effect for as long as Laterpress offers a way to sell digital books.

What this means in practice: If you join Laterpress today because we take 0% on direct sales, that won't change on you. We may charge for optional features that help you grow your readership, and we may introduce new product categories with their own pricing. But your ability to sell digital books directly to your readers at 0% commission is not going anywhere.

6.2 No Advertising Marketplace

Laterpress will not offer functionality for users or third parties to purchase advertisements that promote content above other content on the platform.

What this means in practice: We will never build a system where authors bid against each other for visibility. Discovery on Laterpress is not for sale. This commitment does not restrict other commercial arrangements — for example, referral features where the platform earns a share of sales it helps generate, or partnerships with individual authors to co-create or promote content.

6.3 Minimal Content Removal

Laterpress may only remove user-published content when we reasonably believe one or more of the following grounds apply:

1. Illegal or contractually prohibited — The content or its hosting violates applicable law or a contract.
2. Inactive or unauthorized accounts — The content was published by an account that has been inactive for 12 months or was created in violation of these Terms.
3. Discontinued functionality — The content is tied to a product or feature we choose to discontinue.
4. Pornography — The content is pornographic (primarily intended for sexual gratification) or includes pornographic imagery. This ground exists because third-party services we rely on (such as payment processors) prohibit processing payments for such content.
5. Illegal sexual depictions — The content depicts or promotes illegal sexual conduct, including but not limited to non-consensual acts, incest, pedophilia, or bestiality.
6. Doxing — The content reveals personal identifying information about living people that is not widely known.
7. Spam — The content or the publishing account is spammy, duplicative, or machine-generated at scale.
8. Platform risk — The content or its hosting poses a substantial risk to the platform's ability to operate in a stable, cost-effective, or legally compliant way.
9. Third-party service compliance — The content or its hosting would endanger our ability to use third-party services we depend on.

This commitment governs removal of content from the platform. It does not restrict our ability to exclude content from recommendations, community features, or other discovery mechanisms.

6.4 Data Portability

Users may export their content, subscriber data, and payment account information from Laterpress at any time using tools we provide for that purpose. We will not design our systems to create lock-in or make it difficult for users to leave.

6.5 Transparency

Once per calendar year, Laterpress will publish a report on its website documenting, in aggregate, how much content was removed from the platform and the grounds for removal.

6.6 Change Process

Any modification to this User Commitments section (Section 6) requires all of the following:

1. Written notice. We must notify all users of the proposed change at least 90 days before it takes effect. Notice will be sent by email and published on our website.
2. Published explanation. At the time of notice, we must publish a written explanation of why the change is being made.
3. Grandfathering. If a change materially reduces a commitment, existing users at the time of notice will continue to receive the benefit of the prior commitment for 12 months from the date the change takes effect. The exception is Section 6.1 (No Fees on Direct Sales): if that commitment is ever modified, existing users at the time of notice will retain the benefit of the prior commitment for as long as Laterpress continues to offer a way to sell digital books.

Changes required to comply with applicable law or a court order are exempt from the notice and grandfathering requirements above, but Laterpress will still publish an explanation of the change as soon as reasonably practicable.

This Change Process applies only to Section 6. All other sections of these Terms may be updated in accordance with Section 15.

What this means in practice: We considered a direct user-voting process for changes to these commitments, but chose not to implement one. With the rise of AI agents that can convincingly approximate human interactions, verifying that votes come from real users is an unsolved problem — and a vote that can be gamed is worse than no vote at all. Instead, we chose protections that don't depend on identity verification: long notice periods, mandatory public explanations, and grandfathering that lets you keep what you signed up for. If we ever propose a change you disagree with, you have 90 days to decide and your existing terms are protected.

7. Intellectual Property Infringement

DMCA complaints should be sent to copyright@laterpress.com.

Frivolous takedown requests are prohibited. Counter-notifications are encouraged. Laterpress may send DMCA notices on your behalf for scraped content.

8. Responsibility for User-Generated Content

Content originators bear sole responsibility for their content. Laterpress disclaims liability for errors, accuracy, reliability, or third-party links contained in user-generated content.

9. Disputes Between Users and Third Parties

Laterpress is released from all liability in user-to-user or user-to-third-party disputes.

10. Taxes

Users are solely responsible for all applicable taxes and duties related to their use of Laterpress.

11. Refunds

Fees paid to Laterpress, including AI subscription fees, are non-refundable. Authors set their own reader refund policies. Laterpress may initiate refunds only when illegal activity is suspected.

12. Disclaimers

Services are provided "as is" with no warranties of any kind. Laterpress does not warrant uninterrupted, error-free, or secure operation of its services.

13. Limitation of Damages

Laterpress shall not be liable for indirect, punitive, incidental, or consequential damages. Aggregate liability is capped at $100 or amounts paid to Laterpress, whichever is greater.

14. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify Laterpress against losses arising from breaches of your representations or obligations under these Terms.

15. Changes to Laterpress and Termination

Laterpress may modify, suspend, or terminate services at any time without liability. Changes to the User Commitments (Section 6) are subject to the Change Process described in Section 6.6. These Terms survive termination.

16. Disputes

• Pre-arbitration: Contact hello@laterpress.com; allow 60 days for resolution.
• Governing law: New York.
• Arbitration via the American Arbitration Association (AAA) in New York, NY.
• No class or collective arbitration.
• Exceptions: Injunctive relief for ToS violations; claims of $5,000 or less may be brought in small claims court.
• Claims must be filed within one year of arising.

17. Miscellaneous

• Entire agreement: These Terms (including the User Commitments in Section 6) and the Privacy Policy constitute the entire agreement.
• No employment or partnership relationship is created.
• Force majeure: No liability for events beyond reasonable control.
• Assignment: You may not assign your account without written consent; Laterpress may freely assign.
• Standard severability, waiver, and survival clauses apply.
• Emails: Providing your email authorizes service-related communications. Legal notices should be sent to legal@laterpress.com with the subject "Legal Notice."
• Laterpress is US-controlled. Use from other jurisdictions is at your own risk.

18. Optional Product Terms

18.1 Author Community Features

Optional features that promote stories across Laterpress or via affiliate programs, including Recommended Sections, Top Lists, and Affiliate Links. These features are enabled by default and can be disabled via Settings.

Fee structure:

• Author Community-attributed purchases: 15% fee (10% to Laterpress + 5% to the referring user).
• If there is no referring user, or the referring user lacks Author Community features or Stripe: 10% fee to Laterpress only.
• Referral fees apply to initial and renewal subscription payments.

18.2 Laterpress AI Terms

Optional AI features for brainstorming, plotting, drafting, and editing. Explicit opt-in is required.

Key provisions:

• Laterpress does not train models on your data, nor license your data to third parties for training.
• Inputs and outputs are your Content; you bear responsibility for compliance.
• Third-party providers: Anthropic and OpenAI — their respective terms apply.

AI Subscriptions and Credits:

• AI features require an active monthly subscription. Subscriptions include a monthly credit allotment.
• Subscription credits have no cash value, are non-refundable, and are non-transferable.
• Unused subscription credits expire at the end of each billing cycle and do not carry over.
• Laterpress may grant promotional credits at its discretion. Promotional credits expire 12 months after issuance.
• All unused credits are forfeited upon account termination.

Promotional Credits: Available once per user at Laterpress's discretion; may be revoked for abuse.

Warranty Disclaimer: AI outputs carry no warranty. Outputs may be hallucinated, inaccurate, or outdated. Use is at your sole risk.

Questions? Contact legal@laterpress.com